Rich and I are going to do an Ocarina of Time race on Monday starting around 1pm-ish eastern standard time. We’ll do the stream on his channel (click here), but will be hosted on mine (click here) too! Hope to see you there!

Spoiler alert, Rich will totally win.

END RANDOM STREAM NOTE!

So the new Overwatch season started and as anyone who’s been following me on Twitch already knows, I’ve been playing a lot of Season 2 competitive mode.

Not playing well, but playing.

Other than the new map that got added, one of the more interesting items in the patch is a new profanity/”jerk” filter that will alter the text of match chat depending on what a player types in. If someone is spamming hatred/saying douche-y phrases like “gg ez” Overwatch will sub in alternate text instead.

Things like:

Well played. I salute you all

For glory and honor! Huzzah comrades!

Gee whiz! That was fun. Good playing!

First off, I might totally say something like “Gee whiz” while playing, so it’s pretty amusing that Blizzard will alter profanity to match that sort of silliness. While these phrases are of the “har-dee-har-har” variety, it’s this one that seems odd:

I’m wrestling with some insecurity issues in my life but thank you all for playing with me.

The first time I saw that one, I thought it was a player legitimately saying that to the chat, and was confused when it was immediately followed up by someone else typing something to the effect of, “Mom is letting me have one more game before she tucks me in, oops mistell!” which is apparently one of the other chat subs.

I feel like this is going to have an alternate effect than what Blizzard intended. Instead of people cursing at each other, these phrases become profanity on their own. They didn’t censor bad language, they’ve actively added to the bad language dictionary.

Discussion (4) ¬

hahah this definetly makes more sense when provided with context, especially for those of us not in the know. And I think you’ve hit it on the head: these phrases will eventually mutate into the crass comments they’re meant to disguise. Ahh, well.

Eh, part of the thought pattern with a few of those is probably intended to humiliate the jerks into not wanting to curse. Like the line about Mom letting the player have one more game lampshading their immaturity. As for turning into curse words, it would be funny, but the phrases are simply too long for that sort of psychological impact to stick with most people.